Dorota Jurczak
02 Jul - 02 Oct 2016
DOROTA JURCZAK
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2 July – 2 October 2016
Curator -Miguel Wandschneider
Until her solo exhibition at the Piktogram Gallery, in Warsaw, in autumn 2015, the work of Dorota Jurczak (Warsaw, 1978) was still practically unknown in her country of origin. The artist has lived, worked and exhibited outside Poland since 1999, when she moved to Hamburg in order to study at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, where she made extensive use of the engraving studio. Over the years, Dorota Jurczak has gradually come to use, and expand upon, a repertoire of motifs, such as birds, feathers, candles and the smoke rising from them, cigarettes, excrement, beings with multiple heads (sometimes evoking the archetype of Medusa), the profile of a head with two faces, or matches. By using these elements, the artist composes a gallery of unusual or enigmatic portraits: for example, those of animal creatures that seem to be the result of genetic mutations and composite figures that lie somewhere between human and animal, or between human and inanimate. Some of these works depict mournful and macabre situations, a kind of theatre of cruelty, ruled by the laws of violence and dominance over other species. Over the years, however, one can note in her work both a greater pacification of her always intriguing iconography and imaginary and a greater refinement in formal and expressive terms.
~.{ }.~
2 July – 2 October 2016
Curator -Miguel Wandschneider
Until her solo exhibition at the Piktogram Gallery, in Warsaw, in autumn 2015, the work of Dorota Jurczak (Warsaw, 1978) was still practically unknown in her country of origin. The artist has lived, worked and exhibited outside Poland since 1999, when she moved to Hamburg in order to study at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, where she made extensive use of the engraving studio. Over the years, Dorota Jurczak has gradually come to use, and expand upon, a repertoire of motifs, such as birds, feathers, candles and the smoke rising from them, cigarettes, excrement, beings with multiple heads (sometimes evoking the archetype of Medusa), the profile of a head with two faces, or matches. By using these elements, the artist composes a gallery of unusual or enigmatic portraits: for example, those of animal creatures that seem to be the result of genetic mutations and composite figures that lie somewhere between human and animal, or between human and inanimate. Some of these works depict mournful and macabre situations, a kind of theatre of cruelty, ruled by the laws of violence and dominance over other species. Over the years, however, one can note in her work both a greater pacification of her always intriguing iconography and imaginary and a greater refinement in formal and expressive terms.